


Legendary Vessels

by fardareismai



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, killian and emma talk about their relationship, killian vs the modern world, speculation for the end of season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:05:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6397624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been hard since they ascended from the Underworld- talk doesn't come as easy to them anymore, but with the first crack in the dam, the water rolls forth.</p>
<p>Or: A birthday fic for Laya_Crimson that kind of got out of hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legendary Vessels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Layla_Crimson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Layla_Crimson/gifts).



> **One of my favorite people in the world, Layla Crimson, was born on this day [number removed] years ago. In honour of that auspicious occasion, I have written for her a Thing!**
> 
> **She actually asked me to write something along the lines of "Killian is introduced to a thing in the modern world and hijinks ensue" which is so much fun, but Killian and Emma were being remarkably stubborn with me, so what you have is the following instead. I do hope she will forgive me the change.**
> 
> **The characters of Once Upon a Time do not belong to me, and in no way should any of the speculation re: getting everyone's asses out of the Underworld be treated as fact.**
> 
> **Here there be spoilers through Episode 15 of the fifth season.**

"Does your vessel have a name, Swan?"

Emma jumped. Captain Killian Jones might not be a working pirate anymore, but sneaking silently to catch a lazing crewmember or slip past the law was so ingrained in his makeup that she rarely heard the tread of his boot unless she was specifically listening for it.

She pulled her head out of the inner workings of her beloved old Bug and turned slowly to face him. She wasn't scared to meet his eyes- not precisely. It had been two weeks since the events of the Underworld had nearly torn the peculiar and delicate object that was Them apart at the seams. The look that had lit his eyes in the end- something very near loathing- had haunted her dreams. It had not reappeared in her waking life, and she was allowing herself to trust that it wouldn't.

Her eyes finally made it up to his. They were still a guileless blue and ironically innocent-looking framed by those sooty lashes. Without his usual kohl (or guyliner as Regina would have it), those eyes looked like they belonged on a person a fraction of Killian's age.

His face was unblemished now- skin smooth and pale over cheekbone and jaw- and his beard was back to it's usual neat trim. His hair was still over-long, but she was beginning to find that she liked it.

He was looking back down at her, wary and resigned. He had noticed her hesitation and was waiting for the shoe to drop- for her to raise her walls or run away, as she had so many times in the past. He was smiling, but it was a ghost of his cocky smirk of old.

For a moment the previous night, it had all come back. The laughter between them. His swagger. Her bite. Since they'd returned, they had been walking on eggshells around each other- sharing a house but not a room, afraid to overstep some new boundary put suddenly in place by their experiences below. Two weeks of chaste kisses and polite conversation that had driven them both mad.

But something had slid back into place with an audible click and they'd come together again, finally. They had slept in the master bedroom together for the first time. They had only slept and kissed, true, but it had seemed as though some great obstacle had been overcome, at least at the time.

She'd woken late to find him already gone, a note in his near-calligraphic hand saying he'd be at the docks and he had his "talking phone" if she needed him. She'd expected him to spend the light with his beloved Jolly (he hadn't seen the old girl since he'd come back) and had thought the cover of darkness would make the inevitable confrontation easier. She'd thought she'd have time to decide what to say.

It seemed she was wrong.

But suddenly, as she looked at those endless blue eyes that were full of the same nerves, the same hesitation, and the same boundless, impossible hope that she was feeling, and she knew that they'd be okay.

She smiled up at him.

That one small thing suddenly made the tension she hadn't even realized was there flee his body. The jaw that had been clenched, the shoulders high, even his right hand had been balled into a fist, but it was gone now, and his smile grew. It was a smile she hadn't seen in a long time- before the Underworld with its reminders of loss. Before Camelot and her endless, selfish mistakes. She thought that maybe she hadn't seen it since his sacrifice had helped to save them from the last Author's perfidy in the new story. She had thrown herself at him so hard they had collapsed together onto her bed and he had told her, once again, with a sigh and a grin, that he was a survivor.

In Camelot, he'd tried so hard, her piercing-eyed pirate who loved her, but there had been fear and tension in him every time. No, the last moment they had been at peace had been that brief second when he had promised to stay, no matter what.

She realized, suddenly, that he'd asked her a question. His grin had grown amused, and that blasted left eyebrow of his was climbing up his face.

"What?"

"Your vessel, Princess. Does she have a name?"

Emma glanced back to the old, yellow Bug in surprise, as though she'd forgotten it was sitting there, hood open, in the middle of having its oil changed.

"Uh, no. I've never really called it anything but, you know, 'the Bug.'"

"Every great, legendary ship needs a name, else it will never go down in song and story."

"You think my Bug is going to go down in song and story?"

"It's the task of a bard to be sure a hero's story is told, and that includes, in many cases, their steed or ship, so yours needs a more auspicious name than 'the Bug.'"

"And I take it you have some ideas?"

"The Swan's Song?"

Emma blinked. "Er… that actually means… well… they say a swan sings right before it dies, so a 'swan song' means…"

Killian's face changed expression so fast Emma couldn't help but laugh. He went from flirtatiously teasing to shocked and horrified with himself in an instant. He reached up to finger the silver charms he wore on the chain about his neck- protection against the vicissitudes of wind and tide, like a Catholic unconsciously crossing themselves.

"Gods, that won't do at all, will it?"

"No," Emma agreed. "I think not."

In the air between them there bubbled a strange, fearful tension- the reminder of so many swan songs. The deaths, sacrifices, and near-misses that had made up their lives to that point.

This was not a moment to dwell, however, and Killian rallied first.

"The Hero's Journey?" He suggested, crooked smile back and eyes pleading with her to go with the tease. "Or perhaps the Jewel of the Concrete Sea?"

Emma rolled her eyes ostentatiously. "No and no."

"Enterprise?"

Emma laughed. "I'll explain later why that one is funny. Cut it out now. If you're here, you can help me with the oil change."

"I can?" He seemed surprised at that.

"Yup. I've already drained the old, dirty oil so we just need to change the filter and refill with clean oil."

He blinked at her for a moment. "I didn't understand a whit of that."

Emma pointed at the array of tools she'd laid out on the ground in front of the car. "The wrench there, and the thing next to it? That's the filter. Hand me both."

He did so and Emma buried her head under the hood again. She could have asked David to do it, or even taken it into the garage, but she had always liked fixing up the Bug herself. It was a remnant of simpler days in the real world. Days before fairy tales were real and she had been asked to carry the responsibility of the world on her shoulders.

But also days before Henry and her parents. And Killian.

She liked to remember them sometimes, but she was glad they were past.

"You know, you project such an air of competence all the time. It's always surprising to find something you don't understand."

Killian shifted behind her and she could hear the quiet creak of his leather jacket as he crossed his arms.

"There are libraries worth of information in this realm that would surprise me, Emma," he said. "You'll have to stop being surprised eventually."

"Around here, knowing how to outsmart mermaids and whether trolls prefer chocolate or vanilla bait tends to be far more important than how to change a tire." Emma winced, annoyed at the bitterness that she could hear in her voice.

"And yet here we find ourselves on this lovely day, attending to the inner workings of… the Brute Storm?"

"Still no. You know, speaking of legendary vessels with impressive names, how is the Jolly? You haven't been down to see her since we got back, I figured you'd spend the whole day with her, getting reacquainted."

"Ah."

Emma turned to find that Killian was now the one refusing to meet her eye.

"What's wrong? Did someone do something to-"

"No!" Killian stopped her with a wave of his hand. "No, she's fine it's just… she was Liam's ship first and I…"

"Oh."

Liam's… it wasn't his death, for that had happened centuries before, and yet it had seemed at the time as though he had died. His ascent? His crossing-over?

Whatever it was called, it had left scars on both of them- disillusionment and debt weighed heavily where Liam was concerned.

"I think I might re-name her," he said in a rush.

That stopped Emma dead. "The Jolly Roger?" She asked, knowing the answer.

"Aye."

"Why?"

Killian sighed and leaned against the front of the Bug, staring into the engine, though she knew he wasn't seeing it.

"Do you know what it means? Jolly Roger?"

Emma shrugged. "It's the name of the flag that pirates sail under, isn't it? With the skull and crossed swords?"

"Aye, but do you know why it's named that?"

Emma shook her head.

"Roger is another name for the devil or, more appropriately, death. You don't call a thing by name you know, not unless you want it to appear so… Roger became the thing you called it when you cursed, you understand?"

"And Jolly?"

He lifted his eyes to hers and gave her a wan smile. "The skull grins, aye?"

"Oh… kay." Emma felt as lost as he must have been when she explained the process of changing her oil.

Killian sighed. He reached out to take her hand, smeared over with engine grease. He stared down at her hand as though it held a mystery, but Emma knew he was avoiding meeting her eyes.

"It's a careless name, Jolly Roger. Laughing Devil. It's about sailing into the storm because you've nothing to live for on land and… well…"

Finally everything clicked into place in her mind, and Emma tightened her fingers on his. "And you do… have something to live for."

His eyes lifted to hers, clear as a summer sky over the sea. "I do."

"Did…" she had to clear her throat before she could get the question out. "Did you have a name in mind?"

At that he grinned like the sun breaking over the horizon. "I actually thought I'd ask your mum and dad if they minded but… True Love's Kiss. That was what I'd thought."

She knew it wasn't her parents whose opinions mattered. Theirs was, perhaps, the most famous version of that most powerful of charms, and yet it had been a kiss that had lifted them from Hell itself and had brought them home.

"It's a good name," she said, her voice breaking.

~?~?~?~?~

Emma wore a white dress to the re-christening. Killian wore a black coat. They insisted that the ship would be re-christened with an example.

No vows were exchanged that day, nor rings. Emma wore Liam's ring on her left hand, and Killian picked up the hand and kissed the knuckle just below where it nestled.

Their promises were simple things: the promise to return to each other. To follow each other to the ends of the world. To survive. To do whatever it took to ensure they had a future.

Nothing changed that day, truly, save the name of Killian's ship. Everything else was just as it had always been- Emma Swan and Killian Jones facing down the evil of all the realms, hand-in-hand.


End file.
